The Bulgarian parliament is going to bring the South Stream gas pipeline, which is being built by Russian Gasprom company, out of the European regulation. The Deputies want to fix the difference between the internal European and trans-border gas pipelines in the law so that the EU Third Energy Package is not applied to the latter. The European Commission doubts that and has already requested explanations from the Bulgarian authorities.
Last Friday the Bulgarian parliament passed the law in the first reading, which allows bringing the South Stream gas pipeline partially out of the EU Third Energy Package jurisdiction ( in particular, demands access of the third persons to the pipe’s capacities, separation of types of activities and etc). The amendments to the energy law introduce definition of the “offshore gas pipeline” and separate the notions of “trans-border gas pipeline” (the initial point of which located outside of the EU) and the “inter-system gas pipeline” or the interconnector, which connects the gas transportation system of the two EU member-states. Bulgarian Deputies concluded that the EU legislation cannot be applied to the trans-border gas pipelines. The Russian government has earlier proposed the same idea.
In practice this will mean that the point of entry of South Stream to Bulgaria near Varna city will not be regulated by the EU Third Energy Package, because “this means just reaching the EU borders.”
Therefore, even if the European Commission does not give permission to transport gas via the ground section of South Stream, Bulgaria, which is now totally dependent on Russian gas deliveries through Ukraine, de-factor guarantees itself an alternative access to Russian gas.
Bulgaria consumes about 3 billion cub.m. of gas a year. Deputy Tasko Yermenkov, one of the authors of the law, after cancellation of the Nabucco project, Bulgaria “has no other ways to diversify deliveries left, except South Stream.” “It is not competent to say that by these amendments we exclude South Stream from the EU Third Energy Package jurisdiction and violate the EU legislation, the offshore part of the project is not in the jurisdiction of the law a priori,” he said.
